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Advantages and Disadvantages of Naturalistic Observation Essay

Below is a free essay on "Advantages and Disadvantages of Naturalistic Observation" from Anti Essays, your source for free research papers, essays, and term paper examples.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Naturalistic Observation

The advantages of Naturalistic Observation research is that it allows the researcher to directly observe the subject in a natural setting. It allows researchers to study things that cannot be manipulated in a lab due to ethical concerns. It can help support the external validity of research. It is one thing to say that the findings of a lab study will generalize to a larger population, but quite another to actually observe those findings actually occurring in a natural setting. The disadvantages of naturalistic observation include the fact that it can be difficult to determine the exact cause of a behavior and the experimenter cannot control for outside variables. Another disadvantage is people may behave differently when they know they are being watched. People may try to behave in a certain way in order to conform to what they think the researcher expects to see. And different observers may draw different conclusions from the same witnessed behavior.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Survey

High Representativeness Surveys provide a high level of general capability in representing a large population. Low Costs, when conducting surveys, you only need to pay for the production of survey questionnaires. If you need a larger sample of the general population, you can allot an incentive in cash or kind, which can be as low as $2 per person. Disadvantages of surveys is inflexible design, the survey that was used by the researcher from the very beginning, as well as the method of administering it, cannot be changed all throughout the process of data gathering. Surveys are not ideal for controversial issues, questions that bear controversies may not be precisely answered by the participants because of the probably difficulty of recalling the information related to them. The truth behind these controversies may not be relieved as accurately as when using alternative data gathering methods such as...

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Advantages and Disadvantages of Naturalistic Observation. Anti Essays. Retrieved August 2, 2015, from the World Wide Web: http://www.antiessays.com/free-essays/Advantages-And-Disadvantages-Of-Naturalistic-Observation-378789.html